Tanaka’s Bat Is Quiet, but He Makes Sure the Brewers Match Him

MILWAUKEE — It was Saturday morning in Japan, and a big day for baseball fans there. NHK, the national television network, was broadcasting the Yankees’ game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park on Friday night. The Japanese sensation Masahiro Tanaka was starting for the Yankees and looking to extend his remarkable unbeaten streak.

But after the seventh inning, when Tanaka exited the game, the network switched to the Texas Rangers’ game against the Boston Red Sox in Arlington, Tex., because another Japanese pitcher, the Rangers’ Yu Darvish, was working on a no-hitter.

For fans in Japan, it must have been a remarkable sight as two of the country’s finest exports put on more displays of excellent pitching. Tanaka worked six and a third innings and was helped by Yangervis Solarte, the third baseman who supplied much of the offense with a three-run homer, to propel the Yankees to a 5-3 victory over the Brewers.

Once Tanaka was out of the game, NHK flipped the switch and sent viewers to Arlington, where Darvish, a friend of Tanaka’s from Nippon Professional Baseball, carried his no-hit bid into the ninth inning. But with two outs, David Ortiz singled to break it up.

“Almost,” Tanaka said through his interpreter of Darvish’s near miss. “I will never be able to pitch the way he pitches.”

But for the Yankees, Tanaka has been plenty good. On Friday, he gave up two runs and struck out seven to reach 58 strikeouts in seven starts, improving his record to 5-0. Including his previous two seasons with the Rakuten Golden Eagles, Tanaka has not lost in 41 consecutive regular-season starts dating to Aug. 26, 2012. His record during that stretch is 33-0. His only loss during the last 21 months was in Game 6 of the Japan Series against the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants.

He said that he did not have his best stuff Friday, but he still seemed to overwhelm the Brewers, who lead the National League Central by four games.

“He was very good,” Manager Joe Girardi said. “He left a couple of pitches up late in the game, a couple of splits where he didn’t get them down where he wanted. But he pitched very well and gave us distance and kept his pitch count down.

“His at-bats?” Girardi added. “Eh.”

As Tanaka himself predicted, he did not do well at the plate in his first opportunity to bat in Major League Baseball. A self-described poor hitter with an .081 average in Japan, Tanaka went 0 for 3 in his first interleague game, with three strikeouts. But the Yankees did not commit $175 million to Tanaka to hit. They are fine with him pitching, and letting players like Solarte provide the power.

With the fourth-inning home run, his second of the season, Solarte now has 18 runs batted in, extending his team lead in that category. He is also batting .304.

“He’s been one of our most consistent hitters,” Derek Jeter said. “He enjoys being out there. He wants to play, and he’s not intimidated by anything. He’s done a great job.”

The Yankees added another run in the fourth, and Tanaka held the score there, at 4-0, until the sixth inning. Carlos Gomez led off that inning with a double to center and scored when the next batter, Scooter Gennett, doubled into the gap in left-center field. Jonathan Lucroy followed with a single up the middle, scoring Gennett, and the Brewers had drawn to within 4-2. Tanaka got Aramis Ramirez to hit into a double play and struck out Reynolds to contain the damage.

The Yankees managed to escape another threat in the seventh when Jean Segura and Logan Schafer hit back-to-back singles with one out, which signaled the end of Tanaka’s night, and NHK’s switch over to Arlington.

What viewers in Japan did not get to see was Adam Warren getting out of that jam. He struck out pinch-hitter Lyle Overbay, and Brian McCann threw out Schafer trying to steal second for the final out of the inning.

McCann said earlier in the week that he harbored no ill feelings toward Gomez after their angry confrontation in a game at the end of last season. Gomez clearly felt the same way, giving McCann a friendly tap on the shoulder in his first at-bat of the game.

The only negative aspect to the game came in the sixth inning when a fan ran onto the field and asked Jeter for a hug. Jeter ignored the fan until security guards tackled him and took him off the field.

Before security had reached the fan, Jeter told him that he was going to get in trouble. Then, an instant before he was sent to the ground, Jeter said, “Look out.”

“I was thinking I wasn’t going to hug him,” Jeter said. “If you saw his face, he wasn’t coming out with anger. So, no, it wasn’t scary.”

INSIDE PITCH

Joe Torre, who was honored by the Milwaukee Braves Historical Society on Thursday, the same day the Yankees announced they would retire his No. 6, was at Friday’s game. Torre is Major League Baseball’s executive vice president for baseball operations and oversees the umpires. He said that Laz Diaz, the umpire who ejected Joe Girardi and Shawn Kelley from Monday’s game in Anaheim, Calif., deserved some of the blame for those incidents. “He certainly contributed to what happened,” Torre said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Tanaka’s Bat Is Quiet, But Brewers Match Him . Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe